Judge Waxler considered Varick a moment, and then slowly shook his head.
“We’ll see,” he said. “If I consider the testimony irrelevant or remote, I will entertain a motion to strike, but I have serious doubt that I will grant such a motion. Proceed Mr. Ross.”
Coughlin cut in.
“As far as that article, Counselor,” he said, his voice emphasizing the title with sarcasm, “sure I was in Quirt’s office, but so were other news reporters. I thought you meant alone.”
“Were you ever in a room with him at any other time, alone or not?”
“No.”
Ross walked back to the defense table and opened the folder Mike had given him. On top lay an affidavit signed by the prison guard confessing to having been bribed by the convicts to make the call of four balls. Ross laid it aside; if Billy was ever bothered on that score he would need it. Right now he was after bigger fish. He found what he wanted, finally, not in Gunnerson’s folder, but in Steve Sadler’s, and walked back to the witness.
“How about this occasion?” Ross asked, and handed over a photograph. “For your information, Mr. Coughlin, this is a glossy enlargement of a picture that appeared in the New York Daily News on July 21, 1964. It shows Billy Dupaul signing the contract with the Mets, with Charles Quirt behind him. You are here, to one side. Isn’t that you?”
Coughlin took the picture and studied it. “I remember. So I was wrong. So what?”
“So nothing,” Ross said, “for the time being. Put it that I was testing your credibility. Now, Mr. Coughlin, what newspaper were you working for when you covered that contract signing?”
“I wasn’t working for any. I wasn’t covering it. A guy I knew was going over to cover it and I went along.”
“You mean you were free-loading, is that it?”
Coughlin glared at him. “So what’s wrong with getting a few sandwiches and a couple of drinks on the cuff? You never done it?”
“On occasion,” Ross admitted. His voice was tinged sympathetic. “You were broke?”
“Flat broke, if it makes you happy!”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Ross said, and changed the subject. “Tell me, Mr. Coughlin, didn’t you tell me once that you had seen Billy Dupaul pitch baseball many times?”
“That’s right,” Coughlin said, agreeably.
Ross looked a bit puzzled. “But it couldn’t have been with the Mets, could it? Because Billy was signed during season and never pitched a regular game for them. Where did you see him pitch?”
Coughlin hesitated. Then he said, “Up at Attica.”
“That’s strange,” Ross said, and then thought of something. “You were an inmate there?”
“Never!”
“Then it really is strange,” Ross said, “because Warden Chalmers tells us that the game you attended was the only one you had ever requested permission to cover. So where did you see all these games?”
Judge Waxler interrupted, peering coldly at the man in the witness box. “I should like to warn the witness,” he said, “that he is under oath. And I do not look on perjury kindly. You have already perjured yourself in saying you saw the defendant many times at Attica. One more example and you will be bound over as soon as you finish testifying. Now, answer the questions and answer them honestly. You may proceed, Mr. Ross.”
Ross nodded and returned to Coughlin. “So, where did you see Billy pitch ‘many times’?”
Coughlin looked as if he were going to be stubborn about it. His skinny hands wrapped up in each other; they looked like a bundle of twine. “All right,” he said at last, “so I saw the kid pitch up in Glens Falls. What’s your point?”
“At the time you were a reporter on the Glens Falls Herald, weren’t you?”
“That’s right. Is that a crime, too?”
Judge Waxler’s gavel descended. “Mr. Coughlin, I shall not warn you again!”
Ross continued, unperturbed. “How many years were you a reporter on the Glens Falls paper?”
“Twenty-five years,” Coughlin said sullenly.
“You were retired from the paper?”
“That’s right.”
“On a pension?”
Coughlin scowled. “That’s my business.”
Ross said. “It might be ours. I have an affidavit here signed by the then-publisher, James Kimberly, stating that you retired May 14, 1964, on a pension amounting to sixty percent of your top salary. So how broke could you have been a mere two months later?”
Varick came to his feet, his voice weary.
“Really, Your Honor, the prosecution fails to see—”
“Overruled,” Judge Waxler said, before Varick could continue. He was watching the pale witness with narrowed eyes, a look of speculation in them. “Proceed, Mr. Ross, but try to connect fairly soon.”
“I intend to, Your Honor,” Ross said, and turned back to the witness. “Mr. Coughlin, let me put it that my last question was rhetorical. Let’s move on. While you were living and working in Glens Falls — the year 1942, to be exact — were you engaged to marry?”
Coughlin’s face was gray. His eyes came up, dark holes in his gaunt face.
“Is that another rhetorical question?”
“No,” Ross said quietly.
“In that case the answer is, no.”
“Do you know a Mrs. Gendreau?”
Coughlin frowned at the change in direction. “Sure. She was my landlady at that time.”
Varick came to his feet, shaking his head. “Your Honor, how far astray is Defense Counsel going to be allowed to take us? Now we’re involved in the love affairs of a reporter eight or nine years ago. Really, Your Honor...” He allowed his voice to trail away.
Judge Waxler looked at Ross. “Mr. Ross?”
“Your Honor,” Ross said, “I will connect up at this moment. I have an affidavit from this Mrs. Gendreau, as well as from Mr. Kimberly, stating that the witness was engaged to be married to a Miss Mary Emerich, the defendant’s mother. I intend to prove that this is an important fact in this trial.”
There was a stirring in the courtroom and a sharp gasp from the defense table. Billy Dupaul unconsciously started to rise, but Steve Sadler clamped a thin but strong hand on his knee. Billy subsided, his face white. Ross turned from the judge to face the witness, purposely keeping his back to his client.
“Well, Mr. Coughlin?”
Coughlin’s color was that of damp ashes: he looked faint. “It... it wasn’t anything official.”
“Still, what happened to that engagement?”
“She changed her mind, that’s all.”
“Oh. Still,” Ross went on, bending toward the witness a bit, while Judge Waxler watched closely, “in later years romance didn’t evade you so cruelly, did it?”
“I don’t know what you mean...”
“I mean that you were later married, were you not?”
Coughlin swallowed. He looked around, seeking some place to escape, and then came back to stare at Ross as if partially hypnotized. “I... I—”
“What’s the matter, Mr. Coughlin? Is there anything wrong with being married?”
“No. I—”
“Could you tell us the name of the lucky lady?” Ross went on, boring in.
“Her name—?”
“Was it a woman named Grace Melisi?”
Coughlin merely stared at him.
“I have here,” Ross said, moving to the defense table and picking up a paper, “a certified copy of a marriage certificate dated February 6, 1952, in Albany, New York, which states that on that day Jerome Coughlin married Grace Melisi.”
Varick jumped up again. His attitude was that of a long-suffering man who feels he must try once more to make people understand a relatively simple problem.